Welcome !

Wilson Kane wins a fortune and his future bride at a game of dice from the former pirate Balthasar. When he decides to go and get the girl, the pirate way, by kidnapping her, not only he finds out that she is more than a pirate could ever want from a wife... but that she has 4 identical sisters as well.

This discovery hits him when his men, who were supposed to help him out, each kidnaps a different girl... and none of them gets the right one! But Wilson Kane wants the girl he had met and no one else! Luckily for him it will be the girl herself to solve his problem and put an end to his dilemma...

a solution that will eventually fling her into a new way of life, aboard the Alidivento, across the Mediterranea sea!

Web Hosts and Groups

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Chapter 3 - Curiosities

I am a bit behind with chapter curiosities but let's catch up! :)

We begin with what was mistaken as "the walk of shame" - as it seemed to be a strange request!

Well, truth be told, the walk of shame was not uncommon when somebody would enter or leave a community. Of course leaving the community was the real deal when it came to walk of shame (Adam and Eve anyone?), but entering a community by only bringing yourself with you was a different thing. Very yoda.

It represented leaving your past behind and cutting ties with your previous life and who you were, so that you would be open and ready to accept a new beginning. It's a rite of passage and it helps transitions and adjustments.

Marie Antoinette had to perform a similar walk when she left Austria to go and marry the Prince of France. She was not allowed to bring anything with her (if I remember correctly, not even her dog) and she had to walk naked till she reached the ladies who were supposed to take care of her and dressed her up in French clothes and everything on her had to be French.

Emotionally she went from a place of total freedom to a place with lots and lots of rules.

Not everybody knows this but before the black plague of the XIV century people used to bathe a lot and were very very clean.

To the point that if you visited somebody the first thing you were offered was a bath and you ended up even bathing with your host and stuff hahaha... embarrassing much?

Then medicine went kind of crazy over the belief that a bath would open your pores and invite bacteria in your body and the world became stinkier and stinkier as we approacedh the modern world.

Kings and queens bathed even less than poor people and fully clothed too, and they would drown themselves in make up and perfumes to cover the smell.

Circe's lifestyle derives from ancient times, who knows these witches go way back, to the times of the Sybils and maybe even before that.

She knows the rest of the world is smelly.

This is a bit of an odd fact but nutmegs shaped history and countries.
I suggest you read the following book that will totally explain why nutmeg is brought up so often in this comic as something very precious.

Circe manages to grow a nutmeg tree - the fruits of that tree alone might be the main source of income for the entire Circeius and the reason why they lead such a luxurious lifestyle.

Nutmegs were thought to cure al sorts of illnesses and were considered aphrodisiacs as well.

Nutmegs are the reason New York became New York.

Thousands of people died because of this spice.
Today we use it in mashed potatoes.

Back then you had a nutmeg and you were a millionaire.

Kane and the library.
Circe knows very well that Kane loves books, it was the entire foundation of her plan in Long Overdue, remember? That's how she framed him...

She was probably seriously trying to hypnotize him away from the library... but probably should not have started the dialogue with the word: library.
I mean the moment he heard the word he stopped listening to her and walked in, instead.
So her power of persuasion did not work.

Of course there are several reason as to why she does not want him there: he would disturb Gemma in her studies; it's her library and she probably has valuable books in there; he is a stinking pirate and most of all... he did tear the Book of Power she had created for Nicoli.

But let's be honest, it's mostly because Gemma is there! Of course he doesn't want him to hang around Gemma!

Clearly she does not know that Kane is wearing Colapesce's earrings... so he can see the real Castalia any time he wants... and probably she was also not expecting him to admit that he is not there to save his wife, he is there to be with her.

Let's talk about this polishing business.
There's a common misconception that a pirate's treasure would be made solely of gold or precious materials. Clearly gold and copper are not polished the same way.

Truth be told all the gold coming from the colonies had created such an inflation that a huge economical crisis swept across Europe. So a treasure is actually anything lucrative.

Like I mentioned before, at one point, nutmeg was more precious than gold.

For Kane is no different and in fact we see the treasure room several times full of all sorts of things.

In chapter 6 we see it for the first time, when Castalia is sent to polish it... as a punishment.

Here's a series of images from that chapter where we see the treasure room.

In chapter 7 we get to see that the room is full of salame, cheese, fabric, barrels probably containing water, wine, preserved food of all sorts, maybe apples and the doctor's lemons.

Kane explains that the room is never completely full, and at the moment they have enough stuff to carry on for 4 months, and this happens right before they attack the ship from Parma - where they get more prosciutto and sausages and the sisters end up dancing on the table.

In chapter 13 we see Josh polishing the treasure (and we see behind him some of the prosciutto from the ship from Parma) and in chapter 15 Castalia punishes herself and goes back to polish. The prosciutto is still there.

In Long Overdue, Nicoli picks this room as her cabin. It's here that Pifo keeps his cucumbers for cucumberfest.

So all of this to say that what we see the characters polish is not necessarily gold, it could be silver, it could be copper, it could be pewter... but most importantly what matters most is not the concept of the material to be polished, the important concept is: whether this things needs to be polished or not, you've got to keep polishing and Kane has polished for 4 years. That's why he is so good at it.

The last thing we need to address is the mercurial nature of Kane.
We had grown so used to see the quiet serene looking guy that we had forgotten how much of that is the product of Castalia's presence.

Remember what happened when Castalia was away and Josh died? Emoking happened.

But do you also remember what Kane is like when Castalia is not around? Let the doctor remind you XDDD

For myself all I can add is... Kane can be quite passive aggressive at times.
When you drop somebody in a new environment with different rules, you truly see the stuff they are made of, so some of their true nature will honestly shine through hahaha.

So there, no surprise at all, this is the guy who had his entire crew moon Captain Steeves!

2 comments:

Hello Deda! I'm a long time old reader of yours, but I have plenty of questions for the witches especially Vesuvia and the other two? We haven't read a lot about 'em, and their origins yet. :D (Plus I really want to make a fanfiction about the four's past)

So here goes the list of questions:* So I was wondering if the witches are actually immortal or have human ages? Which led me to question if Circe is human due to her blonde hair..?

I only saw the witches gather at the Circeius, I was wondering where they are actually stationed/living. Since they're the Mediterranean witches do they live in these parts away from each other? So does Colapesce live somewhere in Sicily whilst Circe live in Greece? (I read that the Circeius is her summer house)

Do all witches follow the same ceremony like Gemma's? The post on Chapter 2 - Curiosities stated that it was only for Gemma, but how did they come to be witches?

Since Colapesce is a siren was she a human turned by her mother or is she really a siren? I saw your post on the Colapesce legend so I figured you followed the legend itself.

Do all the witches wear illusions? Like Vesuvia, Colapesce and the other two? Except for Circe and Gemma of course it was already mentioned. It's just that they can change their appearances as well (like the length of their hair).

Do all witches have servants that can become a part of their personal delegations/embassies (like the ones that followed Colapesce and Circe) or are they just servants or part of their own personal inner circle like the ones demonstrated in Gem of the Mediterranean Sea? If neither, what are their roles?

Recently the only locations that were shown and does have a name at the moment is Circe's Ivory Tower, and the Circeius. As for Colapesce's does that mean her home holds Sicily through the pillars in the legends? I was wondering about the name of her home shown in Colapesce's reality. orz Maybe I can make up a name for the other three witches if you're okay with it. :D

You can email me if there are any information that aren't meant to be revealed yet. <33

I noticed you tried to post it three times, so sorry the moderation filter is very slow.

so to answer your questions:

The witches are humans. In a few pages Circe will explain a bit of how the sisterhood works so... that might answer a lot of other questions.They become sisters on their 16th birthday and they stay as witches until they find a pupil/apprentice to replace them.

The witches actually gather under a walnut tree and there is one in every one of the witches' houses.Circe uses the Circeius as her summer house which is in the center (Colapesce is in the south, in Sicily, yes)... otherwise she travels around on her ship and has several other houses around Europe.

They follow similar ceremonies as Gemma but the birth of a witch happens in a circle. What you saw in Chapter 2 is Gemma's introduction to the world and it's almost like a baptism - she is already a white witch - during the introduction ceremony the witches decide if they want to live secluded lives or not. Gemma chose to be secluded and studious.

Colapesce was never a mermaid, she was always a human. There is no real magic in Sisterhood these women are scientists. As such they are persecuted like witches. So there are times when people embrace the myth and use it as a weapon and this is how legend can be blown to big proportions to the point that people believe they are real. Colapesce likes to swim a lot but she is called a Siren because of her beautiful voice.

Yes, all the witches wear illusions to protect themselves from the people.

Depending to their roles and how important they are they might have servants but Circe and the Circeius are center figures to the sisterhood and at the moment Circe is in charge, like a Queen regent so she is the one with more servants and all.

Vesuvia and Gaia live secluded and Zoroastra prefers the company of animals to people.

The Ivory Tower is actually Colapesce's home. She just did not remember and Kane did not know. The Ivory Tower is in Sicily and it is located between the Straight of Messina and the Gole dell'Alcantara (where the monsters Scylla and Charybdis were said to be and cause shipwrecks).She is definitely on the tip of the island so, yeah, her tower is standing on one of the pillars of Sicily.

The name of Nicoli's hometown is made up... but for some reason the girl who proposed the project and I were kind of set on the idea that it was somewhere near Marseille and Nice. That is why when you look at the map indicating Nicoli getting lost you see that her journey starts in France :)

This blogger is heavily moderated. Both the shout-box and the comments are screened by the owner of the blog before they get approved. Post that are not relevant to the subject matter and/or to the comic will not be posted and/or removed.